by Darci Hannah
I shook my head, fearful of the illusion of me he’d created. “No,” I uttered, still denying his belief, because the truth of it was that I was just like him. I grabbed up his hand and held it tightly in mine. As I looked into the eyes that were so much like our father’s, I thought about the letter from Seraphina; I thought about telling him the truth of what had happened to me that day, and why our mother had really died. That she could have lived if … But life was full of ifs. And although one might escape death, one could never turn back the hands of time. And this was not the time to tell him, for some truths are better kept secret.
“I’m sorry …,” I whispered instead, fighting tears, “about our mother. I’m so sorry, Julius. But you must know she is with us. She has always been with us. We don’t have to see her in order to know she exists. She is in the roses and white feathers; she is in the tendrils of moonlight that spill through our windows. She is the breath that comes on the back of our necks when we are in trouble, and the tickling of a gentle wind that sends a frisson of pleasure tingling down our spines. Her lullaby is the soporific lapping of the waves; her morning kiss comes on the heather-scented air. And the visions? Why must they have to be taunting glimpses of a heaven we’ll never see? Why cannot they be a divine gift from her? Do you know I saw Gabriel in my dreams long before you set out to make me believe he was an angel? I fell in love with him even before I ever saw him. And how do you explain your visions for these grand schemes of yours? Are you so vain that you actually believe you have no help in them?
“It was our mother who brought you back to me. She gave us both Gabriel. She was the reason I was able to heal you and bring Dante back from that dark and desolate place. And I know she is with him too … our father, wherever he is. Now you tell me, my dear brother, what mother on earth can do all that?”
He was speechless, knowing the truth of it, and I hugged him, offering all the comfort he had ever been denied. And that was when we felt her—the mother I had never met but had always known; the mother who had loved her son but had left him far too soon. She was with us in the room in Rosslyn Castle, a radiant light smiling on us, as she took us in her arms. The moment she did we became filled with a contentment we had never before known. We heard her voice, happy in our ears. And the room filled with the scent of roses.
Neither of us had the power of speech, and we sat silent in each other’s company, understanding the gift it was that we had finally been brought together. I then took out the handkerchief Dante had given me. Julius, recognizing the embroidered linen, was mildly amused, and smiling back at him, I dried his tears before drying my own. “See?” I said, holding up the damp cloth. “She is in our tears as well. Now, you were saying something about a gift?”
We both smiled, and the mischievous spark returned once again to his blue eyes.
“Yes,” Julius said. “Don’t hate me. It’s part of the reason I fleeced your sheep. I did it for Gabriel, you see,” he explained quickly, calling on his remarkable powers of charm to temper my rising skepticism. And then, comfortably, familiarly, he launched full speed into his tale, opening with the defense, and making it sound utterly scurrilous, as only Julius could: “The man took a vow of poverty, Isabeau. Poverty! Honestly, his slavish devotion to chastity was bad enough. I could almost understand it in his particular case. And his blind obedience to the order? Noble, but impossible to any but the simpleminded and moonstruck to adhere to—which Gabriel, thankfully, is not. All three in my opinion are wholly unnatural. I’ve done my best to preserve in him all that is noble and virtuous, while showing dear Gabriel the light. I’ve succeeded brilliantly, and because I’ve taken great pains to provide for my brother as well, I was forced to fleece your sheep. Don’t look at me like that, Isa! It was out of necessity, and a lot of damn hard work it was too. You see, the wool was only a small payment made to a Flemish merchant who is paving the way for the real commodity we trade in …”
And that was how I learned of my brother’s Cypriot sugar plantation.
“You own a sugar plantation on Cyprus?” I cried, aghast.
“Yes. Weren’t you listening? And not I, we do, Dante and I, and we protect it with our lives, or, more correctly, with the lives of pirates. The point I’m trying to make is that sugar is more precious than gold and pepper combined this year. And the courts of Europe cannot live without it. They are all clamoring for it and will pay whatever price we ask. We have taken over the market, and we fight very hard to keep our sugar in demand. As we speak there’s a hellishly weighty chest of gold on its way to Blythe Hall, along with the family silver I was also forced to borrow. It was being held in escrow by friends of Captain Wood’s to insure the cargo we placed on his ship. Really, all you need to know, Isa dear, is that your husband is not poor any longer. His vow of poverty has been lifted. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s now a sugar baron. And don’t tell him either,” Julius cautioned with a malicious grin. “I want to see his face when he figures it out! He can now buy his wife all the baubles and jewels her little heart desires, and present her glowing and glittering at court. He might also wish to buy himself a nice gold collar now that his mantle has been taken from him. Good riddance to that, I say.”
Stunned by his tale and ignoring his condescending remarks about baubles and collars, I asked, “You … you grow sugar?”
“Not personally. Again, weren’t you listening? We just trade it.”
“And … how did you buy this sugar plantation?”
“I never said that we bought it. All I said was that we own it.”
“You won it at cards, didn’t you!” I exclaimed, knowing perfectly well that’s how they did it. I ignored the look of amused approbation. And then, unable to help myself, I laughed. “Dear Julius, what a surprising man you are.”
“Indeed, although not nearly as surprising as you. Now, are you ready, my dear? Half of Scotland has turned out to see this wedding of yours, and I can’t say that I blame them. For what an oddity is a wedding where the most beautiful maiden in all the land has chosen for her husband a brother-monk? It’s got the lads thinking. Why, if I didn’t overhear six young knights last evening talking about joining the order themselves …”
On the same glorious day, eight miles away in the town of Edinburgh, a crowd had begun to gather in the streets below the castle and all down the Royal Mile. Many of them had sons or husbands in the service of the king; and many of them were still mourning the loss of the twenty elite men who had been slaughtered in an ambush set by one of their own noblemen. There were still more gathered who wanted to see justice served for the brutally murdered old woman who had been much loved in the town, and was known to many as the very soul of comfort and charity. As the sun grew higher, the crowd thickened, and all eyes, patiently trained on the pillory, watched the long, impending shadow slowly recede in anticipation of the hour George Douglas of Kilwylie would answer for his crimes. The condemned man was in ward at the castle; and a good number of the inhabitants, including His Majesty, King James, and his royal mistress, Lady Marion Boyd, had packed up and left Edinburgh with half their court and a large retinue to witness a much happier, much less morbid event. The wedding of the Lady Isabeau Blythe to Sir Gabriel St. Clair, former Knight of the Order of St. Johns, was truly an event to be celebrated. And it was with a cold and practical eye for irony, as well as good old-fashioned spite, that had caused the justiciar to delay executing the sentence until the hour before the scheduled nuptials in Rosslyn Chapel; for as everyone knew, George Douglas had fought hard and underhandedly for the title of Lord Blythe, and had lost.
The convicted man, patiently waiting in his cell at the castle, stood by the little window and peered down at the Nor’ Loch. The morning sun dazzled the rippling blue water. A pair of swans with their gaudy little hatchlings between them crossed below his window heading for the reeds. He smiled languidly. It was a lovely day. It was a day filled with promise, and as he watched the shadows getting shorter, he felt, for the first time, a
pang of doubt. He waited a little longer, watching the swans with fascination. Because he knew that timing was everything. And then, finally hearing the telltale sound of a key turning the lock, he let out a sigh of relief. The creak of the small door followed, and yet he waited still, until he was sure that the body of his keeper filled the opening. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and turned.
The face that greeted him from within the black robe was cautiously joyful. It was a fair, leonine face, love-struck and determined, and topped with a crown of carroty gold. It was the face of Margaret Stewart, spinster princess and aunt to the king.
“My little fool,” she said, walking toward him. “My deliciously naughty, overreaching little fool, what mischief did you get up to? I’m not sorry,” she said as her quivering chin lifted to receive his mouth. “Not one bit,” she breathed, and felt the heady rush of his passion. “She is far too good for the likes of you. And she could have never made you as happy as I can. Hurry now, we haven’t all day.” He dragged the body of the poisoned guard into the cell and changed into the clerical robes she had brought for him. “I’ve a boat waiting to take you to England. Your men are waiting by the postern,” she informed him as she locked the door behind them. She then handed him the key. “Keep this, as a reminder of how close you came to death. Remember my charity. Remember my love. I cannot offer either again.”
It was said of Sir William St. Clair that in his later years he wished to build a house for God’s service, of most curious work, and that it might be done with greater glory and splendor. Rosslyn Chapel, in my opinion, had achieved what Gabriel’s father had set out to do. The building itself was part of a bigger plan, and was to be a collegiate church, dedicated to Saint Matthew. The construction, when it began forty-six years earlier, had been so consuming that it gave rise to an entire village of artisans and craftsmen in order to support Sir William’s dream. And yet when Sir William died, some of the grandeur he had envisioned died with him, but he had left for his progeny an exquisite little masterpiece sitting high on a hilltop in Midlothian.
I entered the chapel on the arm of my brother, filled with excitement, bursting with hope, and overwhelmed with reverence for the place where I was to marry Gabriel St. Clair. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, yet once they did I saw that just as nearly every piece of masonry had been adorned with spectacular and wide-ranging imagery, the crowd that filled the nave and overflowed into every vacant space beneath the arches was just as spectacular and diverse. All faces were turned toward us, all reflecting and magnifying the joy I felt. And then I saw Gabriel standing before the altar, outshining the splendor of the stained-glass windows above him. Julius was right; he did look magnificent, dressed in the finery of a knight with his sword belted at his side. Beside him stood Dante holding a wiggling Rondo, and behind them a choir of cherubs began to sing. All my family was here with me, and we were surrounded by our friends and countrymen; not even in my dreams could I have envisioned a more perfect moment—a more perfect beginning to a life I had only dreamed of—including the look of adoration on Gabriel’s face. With confidence I walked forward under the soaring arch of the roof, focusing on nothing but the man waiting for me …
And then, in the space of one strangled heartbeat, it all changed.
Something terrible had happened. I could feel it. I could see it in the dark clouds that appeared overhead, momentarily blocking out the sun that fell across Gabriel as he stood at the altar. A flash of dread quelled my ebullient joy. And when I saw Will Crichton, a young man in the service of my brother, who was supposed to be in Edinburgh witnessing the execution of George Douglas, standing instead by the magnificent Apprentice Pillar demanding Julius’s attention, I knew. I knew that the unthinkable had happened. I faltered in midstep and came to a complete halt, for my ears were ringing with the threat: I will take everything from you, everything you hold dear, until you have nothing left but emptiness, and pain, and remorse …
I looked at Gabriel. He was everything I held dear; without him I would live the prophecy George Douglas promised. And then I thought of that puppy long ago: Rondo. My father had told me then that I needed to learn how to let go of what I loved … because my love had killed him.
The cherubs, noting my hesitation, faltered and stopped singing; the church fell to silent discord as all eyes settled on me. And I watched, trapped in silent fear, as Gabriel’s joy melted before my eyes. Dante, standing beside Gabriel, froze as well, but his astute gaze narrowed with unfolding speculation.
It was then that I felt the grip on my arm tighten as a chiding plea hit my ear. “For God’s sake and mine, Isabeau, embrace the path before you! Do you not think that I feel it too? I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong, for we are with you now. We will let no harm befall you. God has given you Gabriel; do not throw such a gift away for a petty fear. Look at him!” he whispered in an impassioned voice. “Do not break his heart. You are a warrior too, Isabeau. You are the daughter of Sir William Blythe. It is time to face your destiny. Embrace the path you were born to walk.”
I looked at him and saw the respectful fear smoldering behind the bravado. But the smile and the plea were genuine. And he was right; Julius was always right. Bolstered by his touch, I returned his smile. He released his hold on my arm. And then, without another thought, I ran to the altar, where Gabriel St. Clair was waiting for me. I took his hand. I basked in his returning, radiant joy and offered him my own. And then, together, we knelt before the priest, and half of Scotland, and finally allowed our common dream the freedom it had fought so long and so hard for; we finally allowed it the freedom to no longer be just a dream.
About the Author
DARCI HANNAH lives and plays in Michigan with her husband and three sons. When she’s not playing, she’s hard at work on her next novel.
